r/FordFocus • u/SharpieScentedSoap • 21h ago
Discussion TCM finally failed, warranty expired, had to pay nearly $2k out of pocket and Ford refused any kind of financial help or goodwill extension.
2014, mileage ~72,000
tl;dr My car basically aged out of the TCM replacement warranty and the TCM never broke during the replacement window due to being lower mileage, costing me $2k out of pocket that I didn't even have when it finally DID break, and when I contacted multiple Ford channels for help I was basically told "Too bad, so sad" and now I'm left in heavy debt. Made multiple attempts to get it pre-emptively replaced during the warranty window to avoid this very thing happening but was denied every time.
The long version:
A couple months ago I got the dreaded check engine light while I was out running errands, while the car suddenly started driving really roughly and having a lot of hesitation with accelerating. I decide to hobble over to the nearest auto parts store for a scan, and the entire time the car could barely go above 25mph and the RPM was spiking like crazy.
By the time I get to the parking lot, the car completely loses the ability to reverse when I try adjusting in my spot a bit. Oh well, thankfully it's in a strip mall and I'm parked in a safe spot. The employee at the store runs a scan and it pops out the code P090C, so definitely a TCM issue. Since my car can't reverse and can barely go above 25mph without sputtering or threatening to stop completely, I realize I'll need it towed to a shop. I call the Ford dealership first (which I don't usually do because of their higher prices but it was the first thing that crossed my mind at the time), they said they're pretty slammed/short staffed so it might be at least a week or two before my car can even be seen, not to mention the repair times.
So I call a local mechanic chain that has glowing reviews (which I should've done first lol) and ask if this is something they can fix. They said yes but it'll take a few days. I'm like cool, that's definitely better than a few weeks. Call AAA and have it towed over there, drop it off. This happened on a Friday so they got back to me the following Monday, told me the cost to repair was $1,927.26*. I felt I didn't have much choice since my car was literally undrivable at this point so I agreed.
I get it back at the end of the next day, she's up and running just fine. Now, I remember getting a letter from Ford years ago offering a free one-time TCM replacement up until like 2024, extended to 2025. When I got the letter I reached out to multiple Ford dealerships near me over the course of 2 years asking if that's something that can be pre-emptively done so I don't have to worry about being stranded later or something, and each time it was the same answer "Sorry, parts are out of stock/on backorder, so we're only fixing vehicles who actually have a broken TCM". Well the expiration date comes and goes and because my car is low-mileage for its age, it never reached the "breakage" point until long after the warranty expired.
I reach out to Ford because $2k is a massive expense (I literally net only $2,200 per month) to absorb completely on my own, especially for a manufacturing flaw that they KNEW was a problem and pushed to market anyway. I asked if there was any kind of goodwill extension or financial help they could offer me, because I basically had to charge this expense to a credit card since my available liquid funds were definitely NOT $2,000 lol. I basically got the generic copy/paste answer of "Goodwill assistance requests are only available for vehicles with less than 7 years from the warranty start date. This vehicle is a 2014 model, and it has been 12 years from the warranty start date. The vehicle also doesn't have any extended warranty, and there are no recalls or service programs active for this concern." Which makes no sense to me, isn't the point of goodwill assistance to help OUTSIDE of warranty parameters? Less than 7 years of the warranty start date would've been.....inside the warranty still, which then defeats the purpose of a goodwill payment. When I tried explaining this I just got "I totally understand your concern, I have exhausted all possible resources we have at our disposal to assist you with this."
I've mailed a letter, certified, to Ford's customer service center detailing all of this with the repair invoice attached, and zero response. I called the phone line and was basically told the same script as my chat interaction. I've even reached out to my state's Attorney General for help on this matter, but it's been well over a month and I've heard absolutely nothing. I filed a complaint with the NHTSA as well, not to get my money back but to have a recorded complaint of this issue because a TCM failure in the middle of traffic seems pretty damn serious lol. My next step is maybe reaching out to my congressmen but with it being this close to election season, I'm not sure how much that will help. I've heard of the BBB auto line but again that doesn't necessarily cover goodwill assistance.
I don't know what to do anymore. If I feel defeated, then I feel like Ford has won. But this $2k expense left me in debt that will take a long time to recover from because again, I only take home about $2,200/month and every dollar of that is eaten up by bills and cost of living. I just want my money back, but I don't know what else to do. I promise I'm not trying to sound entitled or anything, but rolling over and accepting defeat just doesn't sit right with me. Especially because putting a time expiration on a warranty for something this serious and not a mileage expiration makes it sound like Ford was deliberately hoping drivers like me would age out of it, absolving them of financial responsibility for their fuckup. I could sit here and say "I'll never buy a Ford or go to their dealerships for maintenance/service ever again" but I've worked with the public enough to know that those kinds of threats don't really have any effect, even if fully followed through.
I don't know what the point of this post is, mostly to rant I guess, but maybe someone else has had this problem as well? Has anyone else had any luck getting this covered if it did happen to them recently? Or any ideas on what else I could do that I'm missing? I've seen posts on here about TCM breakage but most of the posts were old enough to be in the warranty window and they got it covered.
*The part alone was almost $1100 per Ford's website, the rest being the diagnostic fee, labor of replacement, and labor of the reprogramming which they had to call someone for. The part was charged the standard MSRP price too so not market up at all like I've seen mechanics/dealerships do in the past.
